How I Married a Marquess (18 page)

Royston's face darkened. “What are you talking about?”

“Political appointments,” he repeated calmly. “And favors.” Those were the reasons Josie gave for the orphanage's existence. But he wanted to hear Royston's version, compare the two, and try to sort fact from fiction. “Now that the wars are over, there are new opportunities for ambitious men in Parliament.”

“Yes, there are,” Royston agreed. “I need friends if I'm going to build influence and power. You of all people should understand that.”

You of all people
.
Royston was sadly mistaken about that. Thomas had never wanted power or influence; he didn't care if he never received any credit for the service he'd given his country from the Englishmen whose lives he'd undoubtedly saved by risking his own. He'd been an agent because he wanted his life to matter, because he wanted to be more than just a placeholder in the long line of Chatham dukes. He wanted purpose. Meaning.

“But at what cost?” he asked quietly, giving voice to his worst fears.

“I've done nothing illegal,” Royston replied confidently. “Lord Liverpool is aware of all my actions.”

“There's a fine line between illegal and unethical.” Thomas calmly stepped to the table, took only a moment to line up the shot, and sank the last ball. “Especially if you haven't been entirely transparent in your ambitions.”

“Are you accusing me of committing criminal misdeeds?” Royston demanded coolly.

“Of course not.” Then, coming too close to Josie's secret for comfort, yet having no choice but to dance on the razor's edge, he explained, “I am suggesting that whoever is targeting your guests might be doing so because
he
suspects you are.”

“Absurd.” Royston laughed with an assured smile. “I've never done anything that would be considered unethical or illegal.”

Or anything that would cause someone to blackmail him into using the orphanage for favors. Thomas's last hope for an easy solution vanished like smoke. “I didn't think so,” he replied, forcing out a smile he certainly didn't feel.

“You know how your father is,” Royston assured him. “Honorable beyond measure. Would Chatham take me as a political ally, or a friend, if he suspected I had done anything even remotely questionable?”

“No, he certainly wouldn't,” Thomas agreed, conceding the point. But his chest didn't lighten with relief at knowing Royston was innocent of the crimes of which Josie accused him. Because it meant that she was entangled in an even bigger mess than before. One from which he might not be able to free her.

Turning his back to the earl to return his cue to the wall rack, Thomas rested his hand on the handle of the cue and drew a deep breath.
This
was the decision point. The moment when he would have to choose between Royston and Josie, between a respected member of the peerage who had never been anything but proper and dignified in all his public dealings and a woman for whom deceit and distrust were second nature. Between securing a recommendation to the War Office that would effectively erase the past year and give him his life back and saving the woman who had captured him the way no other woman ever had.

Christ
!
He didn't want to arrest her. He
couldn't
bring himself to arrest her, in fact, now that he'd experienced the contradictory calm she brought to him at the same time that she made his blood boil with desire. Yet his future didn't lie with her; it lay in his past, with a brilliant career as a spy still ahead of him, a sense of purpose instead of nightmares and fear. The last thing he needed—the
very
last thing, damn it!—was a woman in his head and heart to distract him from the life he had always been meant to live.

He closed his eyes briefly, silently cursing his own selfishness. “I'll stop your highwayman, I promise you.”

“Thank you.” Royston clapped him affectionately on the back. “I want this matter settled by the time the party ends.”

In only three days
.
“It will be,” he answered grimly, remembering Josie's refusal to stop the robberies. He was left with no choice now but to force her to stop. “One way or another.”

Royston nodded, satisfied with Thomas's answers and oblivious to the guilt churning inside him. As the earl turned toward the door, Thomas sucked in a deep, shaky breath and scratched at his wrists.

They left the room and walked down the hall toward the stairs, but Thomas wasn't breathing any easier. His progress report was done, and his evasions and delay tactics had bought Josie a brief reprieve. But he'd only delayed the inevitable. He would have to make a final decision soon, and God help them both when he did.

In the meantime he needed to find a way to keep the frustrating woman from committing any more robberies. He'd lied to Royston. The highwayman robbed coaches precisely for the money, risking her neck to keep the orphans in the best home possible.

If only the orphanage had enough money, then the robberies would be unnecessary, and perhaps she'd stop. If she could have the money all at once, instead of one purse at a time—

The idea hit him like a lightning bolt. There
was
a way to get her the money, and if Royston himself provided the blunt, perhaps she'd even let go of her accusations against him.
If
he could talk the earl into increasing his patronage.

“When I was in the village,” he commented offhandedly, yet very carefully approaching the topic, “I saw a little orphanage there.”

“The Good Hope Home.” Royston nodded as they reached the top of the stairs. “And?”

Thomas noted the sudden coldness in the earl's voice. “I know that you and the countess are patrons.”

“We help however we can,” he replied dismissively.

“I'd like to help myself. Would you mind if I visited to see if there was anything I could do for the children while I'm here? Perhaps look through its accounts and books?”

Royston hesitated, pausing at the top of the landing. Then he forced a smile and continued down the stairs. “Of course not. But I'd rather you found the highwayman first.”

Thomas's heart skipped.
Royston hesitated
.
So briefly that it had barely been perceptible, yet he'd noticed—the pause taken in mid-step, the silence as loud as a canon shot.

Suspicion jolted through him, sending his heart into his throat and spinning confusion through his mind. Yet he forced himself to keep his face impossibly blank even as an instinctive sickening clenched in the pit of his stomach. Good God…could Josie be right after all? Was Royston truly using the orphanage for his own gain?

And which one of them was he supposed to trust now?

Maintaining a calm façade, despite the rising anxiety stirring inside him, he descended the stairs beside Royston and walked through the entry hall to the front door, passing a group of women on the stone portico who had made their way outside from the drawing room to take in the fresh air. They chattered as the two men approached, matching the chirping sounds of the songbirds from the gardens.

Thomas felt her before he saw her. Josie stood apart from the group and did her best to pretend not to see the two men while at the same time noticing every move they made.

En masse the women turned to greet their host, and in that brief moment when everyone's attention was focused on Royston and his on them, Thomas crossed behind her and brushed his hand against her skirt as he passed.

“Get me your proof,” he warned, his voice low. “
Now.
”

Then he forced a charming smile at the women and nodded his greetings before bouncing down the stone steps to the drive and sauntering off toward the stables, as if he didn't have a care in the world.

T
homas nodded as he tried to concentrate on what Lady Agnes Sinclair was telling him about the Earl of St. James, his new wife, and some tragic accident involving kippers at Vauxhall—no, that couldn't be right. He couldn't imagine anything involving kippers that could possibly be considered tragic.

But then, neither did he care. Not when the focus of his attention stood on the other side of the drawing room, beautifully draped in a yellow satin gown that brought out the auburn highlights in her chestnut hair. And completely ignoring him.

He hadn't had the opportunity to speak with her in private since their encounter that afternoon in the morning room, but he'd hoped to get her alone for a few minutes tonight. After all, he couldn't very well kidnap her again—twice in one week would certainly set tongues wagging, phaeton or not. And if he simply showed up at Chestnut Hill, asking to call on her when she was so obviously agitated with him…Well, he doubted he'd survive the pulping her brothers would give him.

Irritatingly, she was avoiding him, having ignored him during dinner and
now lingering on the opposite side of the room. She was trying so hard to avoid him, in fact, that she now kept her attention riveted to Lord Gantry as if the paunchy old fop were the most interesting man in the world. She probably believed all his boasting, too, those made-up stories about his adventures in the Colonies. While here
he
stood, capable of providing true stories of daring for king and country, but he found himself unable to garner her attention for even a few minutes.

Instead he was trapped in kipper hell.

“Don't you agree, Chesney?”

“Pardon?” His attention snapped back to Lady Agnes, her bright-red turban impossible to ignore. “Oh—yes, quite.”

Pleased by his response, she continued with her story. The great kipper caper…or something. Occasionally he nodded when she paused, but his eyes never strayed far from Josie.

She'd captured his imagination in a way no other woman ever had. Even now his hands itched not from the memories of the ropes binding him to his sickbed but from the desire to run his fingers through her chestnut waves. In less than a sennight, she'd changed him just as much as the hell of the past year.

But he wasn't green enough to think there was more to the spell she'd cast over him than allure and intrigue. Even the initial effect she'd had on him, which puzzled him so deeply that he'd been preoccupied to distraction, could be attributed to the challenge she presented as the only woman he'd ever met who was his equal in craftiness and attention to detail. If he'd slept better since meeting her than he had in the past year, then sleep came simply because the dreams he kept having about her left him too aroused and aching at night to be bothered with panicked fits at the silence and darkness.

What he felt for her was certainly desire, and the small taste he'd had of her passion had only whetted his appetite. He'd even admit that perhaps he also felt a growing affection for her, spurred on by what he'd seen of her bravery, her brilliance, and her devotion to the orphans.

But he also didn't trust her. And the most important lesson he'd learned during the past year was that trust meant everything…in his own survival, in his abilities, and in the people he loved.

As if on cue, her gaze wandered over Lord Gantry's shoulder toward him. For a moment their eyes met across the room.

Then she angrily stiffened her shoulders and tore her gaze away. But even in the dim glow of the beeswax candles, he saw her cheeks pinken in a faint blush and knew she was just as affected by his presence as he was by hers.

“Lord Chesney?”

He looked back at Lady Agnes, who stared at him expectantly. “Yes?”

“I asked what you thought about this whole mess.”

He frowned as he watched Josie excuse herself and cross to the buffet where Greaves, the butler, stood attending the silver coffeepots. “I think kippers should be considered a most dangerous food.”

“Kippers?” Lady Agnes blinked, bewilderment settling on her round face. “I don't know what—”

“Excuse me.”

Without waiting for her to respond, he strolled to the buffet and arrived at Josie's side just as she smiled at Greaves in a friendly enough way that the normally stoic butler twitched his lips almost pleasantly. And Thomas knew then exactly who within the earl's household had been passing information to her about the guests.

“Miss Carlisle.” Thomas inclined his head.

Her back stiffened, and she sniffed disdainfully. “Lord Chesney.”

Oh, she was definitely angry at him.
Wonderful
.
“I trust you're having a pleasant evening.”

“I was.” She smiled tightly, aware that Greaves stood near enough to overhear their conversation. “Good evening.”

With her head held regally high, she walked away toward the fireplace. In her hurry to cut him, she'd completely forgotten why she'd gone to the buffet.

“Coffee, Greaves,” Thomas requested. Then, watching her put half a room between them, he added, “With lots of liqueur.”

“Certainly, sir.” The butler fixed a cup and presented it on a saucer.

Thomas accepted it and strolled after her.

When he stepped up behind her, he gently took her elbow to keep her from walking away again. She caught her breath at his touch, the little inhalation of surprise tingling his fingertips.

“You forgot your coffee,” he murmured in a voice low enough that even surrounded by houseguests he wouldn't be overheard, then held the cup and saucer out to her.

“I no longer want any, thank you.” She glanced icily down at his hand at her elbow. “Please release me.”

He arched a brow. “Please don't walk away.”

“Fine,” she agreed irritably. He eased his hold on her elbow, and she slowly pulled her arm free as she faced him.

“You've been avoiding me,” he commented in a low voice with a forced smile, cautiously aware of the roomful of guests around them. During the past week, the two of them had become quite adept at having intimate conversations in the middle of crowded rooms.

“How keen of you to notice, my lord.”

His lips twitched.
Cheeky chit
.
He had half a mind to tell her she was beautiful when she was angry, but he wasn't certain she wouldn't slap him. “Why?” He lowered his voice to a murmur. “Because I dared to touch you?”

He refused to apologize for what happened between them in the morning room. They'd both enjoyed it. Very much, in fact. He certainly didn't regret caressing her or watching the desire on her face as she'd quivered against him, her body warm, tight, and soft like silk. And he knew that she didn't regret letting him. Because she might be scowling at him as irritably as a governess, but her breath had grown shallow, her cheeks faintly pinkening. The memory of that encounter aroused her even now.

“It has nothing to do with that.” She glanced away in embarrassment, then grudgingly admitted in a soft voice, “That was…nice.”

His chest warmed at the small victory, and he longed to show her all the other ways he could be
nice
. “Then what's wrong?”

“How can I trust you?” she ground out, a sense of betrayal lacing her voice. “Royston rang a bell, and you went running to his side!”

He straightened. So
that
was what fanned her anger tonight. Not that he'd pleasured her but that he'd shown loyalty to the earl. “I wanted to learn what he knew about the highwayman,” he explained, raising the cup to his lips to continue the pretense of a normal after-dinner conversation. “If he knew enough to have you arrested.”

“So you can arrest me yourself instead?” she scoffed angrily. “You still don't believe me about Royston, do you?”

He didn't know what to believe, and he cursed beneath his breath, frustration flaring inside him. Yet he calmly returned the cup to its saucer and pressed, “Where is your proof?” He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt based on nothing more than a gut hunch about Royston, one his logical head told him couldn't possibly be true. But he couldn't prove her innocence by himself. “For me to simply take your word against his—”

“And you would never do that, would you?” She searched his face, doing her best to read him. Or find anything on which to pin her hopes. “Simply trust your instincts instead of your observations?”

“No,” he admitted grudgingly. When it came to this woman, his instincts flew right out the window. He didn't know which one to trust, her or Royston, but he damned well knew that when he was around her he certainly couldn't trust himself.

“So that's it, then. Nothing's changed.” Her eyes flared like storm-tossed seas. “Royston gets away with what he's done, you'll still leave when the party's over—”

His eyes narrowed. “That doesn't have any—”

“And the orphans still have no one to help them but me.”

If he had his way, they wouldn't even have her. Not in the manner she meant. “You have to forget this madness now,” he warned, lowering his voice as Lord Gantry walked past and acknowledging the baron with a slight nod. “Royston's sworn to stop the robberies, which makes him dangerous. Because he won't arrest you, Jo.”

“Well, thank goodness,” she drawled. “Then you still have a chance to—”

“He'll just shoot you and leave you for dead on the side of the road.”

Her breath strangled in her throat, and she paled. Fear blazed in her eyes even as she resolved, “I won't let that happen.”

He gritted his teeth. The
most
frustrating woman! “For God's sake, I am trying to keep you from getting hurt!”

She raised her chin only slightly, but he noticed. He noticed everything about her. “I don't need your protection.”

“You need me more than you realize.” His voice dropped to a throaty murmur. “You need me to keep you unharmed and out of gaol.”
And if they hadn't been standing in the middle of a drawing room, surrounded by women playing cards and men arguing about horses, he would have pulled her to the floor right there, ripped off her dress, and shown her exactly how much
he
needed
her
. Damnation, how was it possible to want a woman this badly when he didn't know if he could trust a word that came out of her succulent mouth?

“But you don't believe me,” she answered sadly, her eyes glistening. “And you'd still arrest me, wouldn't you?”

“If I had to,” he answered quietly, the honest admission ripping a hole in his chest. Arresting her was still the best way for him to regain his old life, and the last thing he wanted to do to her. He was still hoping he could find a way out of this mess for her. “Stop the robberies before you get hurt.”

“I'm sorry.” Despite the tremor in her soft voice, she forced a smile for anyone who might have been watching. “But I can't do that.”

Taking a deep breath, as if collecting her resolve, she walked away, leaving him standing there alone like an idiot, the coffee he'd fetched for her still in his hand.

He raised the now-tepid coffee to his lips and took a sip, wishing mightily that he had a whiskey instead and having half a mind to bribe the footman to sneak him some. The coffee splashed in his cup, and he scowled. For God's sake, even now she had his hands shaking from wanting her so badly, from remembering how responsive her body was to his touch, and from craving to taste again the flavor of peaches that clung to her like an erotic spice.

He was a fool for letting her get beneath his skin, this woman of all women, the one who held his future in her scheming little hands. Because that same tantalizing woman who came draped in yellow satin also came wrapped in a giant ribbon of mistrust. One he had no idea how to untie to get to the truth beneath.